Sumar proposes that the working day for state officials be 35 hours a week

The minority party in the government, Sumar, wants civil servants to work 35 hours a week, instead of the 37.5 hours they currently spend in the General State Administration. The parliamentary group has registered 117 amendments to the Civil Service Act, a ministry in socialist hands, and one of them calls for this reduction in the working day. This request comes in the midst of a debate on working hours in Spain, while the government is seeking parliamentary support to reduce the maximum ordinary working day established by the Workers' Statute from 40 to 37.5 hours.

“The general working day of the State Administration will not exceed 35 hours per week and will be set by the ministerial department responsible for public service, after negotiation with the trade union organisations present at the negotiating tables, within the framework of the provisions of the basic regulations,” states the Sumar amendment.

The party points out that “the Framework Agreement for a 21st Century Administration [ approved in 2022 ] already establishes the recovery of the 35-hour workday.” The working hours of state employees, as a general rule, increased in 2011 from 35 to 37 and a half hours , in the midst of the Great Recession, one of the cuts applied by Mariano Rajoy’s Government. “Because it is committed to this, the general ordinary workday of 35 hours must be guaranteed in this law,” adds the Sumar amendment.

The text also calls for the organisation of these employees' working hours to be organised "through instructions on the staff's working hours and schedules, following collective bargaining, which will be issued by the ministerial department responsible for public service and will be applied through work calendars." "Work calendars will be public in order to ensure that they are generally known by both staff and their union representatives, as well as by interested citizens," adds Sumar.

A look at the statistics from the Ministry of Labour shows that the average working day for employees in the public administration is already close to 35 hours. According to the latest available data, the average working day agreed in this branch of activity is 35.9 hours. A large part of the autonomous and municipal public employees do have working days that are around 35 hours. Of the three million public workers, two and a half million are employed by these administrations, compared to half a million employed by the General State Administration.

The average agreed working day for all workers, including private employees, is 38.3 hours. If the cut promoted by the Ministry of Labour is confirmed, the measure will affect 86.5% of those employed under the protection of collective agreements, while the remaining 13.5% currently work 37.5 hours a week or less. The success of the measure depends on the support of the right-wing parties in Congress, especially Junts, which has not yet taken a position.